


Hear No Evil

by JJ_Shinnick



Series: Music'Verse [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-09
Updated: 2012-06-17
Packaged: 2017-11-07 08:53:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/429182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JJ_Shinnick/pseuds/JJ_Shinnick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a world where music has been illegal for nearly twenty years and color is getting harder to come by, people are just as obedient to the law as ever--which is to say, only when it suits them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Overture

**Author's Note:**

> This is a bit of an experiment for me, something to relax between more serious projects. It was very loosely inspired by some of the fic written for the My Chemical Romance album Danger Days, but I'm posting it as original work since it isn't really quite that universe and is all original characters besides. This was written as the first chapter of a longer piece, but stands alone well enough. My first post on Archive, which is why the formatting is a little odd.

        The club had been shut down for nearly twenty years, from the outside. The brick had been tan once, but very little of the original color peeked through the graffiti. These days even that was mostly in the Approved shades: black, gray, tan, and a little bit of dingy white. Still, splotches of faded red and green bore testament to wilder times. Times before Prohibition, when the doors had not been secured by thick, rusting chain. In those days those doors would have been the main entrance, and the windows that now gaped like broken-toothed mouths would have spilled light and music into the night. Now those windows were dark, and only the faintest suggestion of a beat buzzing up through Adam's feet revealed that the club was not as dead as the outside suggested.

        Adam wiped his sweating hands on his pants, jeans that were not any of the Approved colors but a deep, subtle blue, and followed the directions he'd been given. They led him around the back of the building, down a short alley and into the shadow of a rusting dumpster. There was a door there, just like he'd been promised. The faint smell of smoke lingered in the alley, and Adam was suddenly unreasonably certain that it was from actual tobacco. Adam wouldn't know. He'd never smelled tobacco, so far as he knew. Swallowing hard, Adam pushed open the black-painted door. It swung open easily, silently, not like something as neglected as it looked ought to, and Adam followed it in before his senses could start reporting and scare him away from the room within.

        The light was dim, inside, apparently coming from a single bare bulb clipped to the side of a battered table. A man sat behind it, a thin white tube tipped in fire held to his lips. Adam swore he could see the edges of ink below the neck of the man's faded t-shirt.

        “Name?” The man asked. He sounded bored, like he took illegal drugs every day and was perfectly used to strange teenagers stumbling in and staring at him while he did. Maybe he was. Adam knew there had been more instructions but his mind was blank.

        “A- Adam.” He made his mouth say. The large man frowned at him, and took a long drag on his cigarette. He let it out on a sigh, a long theatrical plume of smoke accentuating the sound.

        “You've never been here before, have you?” It wasn't a question, but it wasn't unkind either—more resigned than anything. He didn't wait for an answer. “No one uses their out-there names,” he gestured to the door Adam had just taken, “--in here. If you know enough to be here, you ought to know that, kid.” Adam could feel himself blushing, red creeping up his face, and tried to will it down. Den of inequity or not, some things were just inappropriate.

        “Sorry,” he muttered. “I did know that, I'm just--” he made a shape with his hands that he hoped would convey it, _rattled disjointed uncertain_ , even as his councilor’s voice played in his head, _use your words_.

The large man didn't go so far as to smile, but something about his grimace was more sympathetic than annoyed. “Tommy,” he said. “You look like a Tommy to me. You got anything to pay the cover or y'gonna start a tab?”

        “Tab,” the newly-named Tommy said to his shoes. He could _feel_ the big man rolling his eyes without having to look up.

        “Hand.” The man said, and held out his own, flicking the still-smoldering cigarette into a metal dish on the table. Tommy held out his left hand, only to have it unceremoniously grabbed. The man pulled a pen from a cup on the table, glanced at the tip, and scrawled an intricate sign on Tommy's hand. He held the hand there while he copied down the symbol and some information in the paper ledger spread out on the table.

        “'Kay,” he said at last. “Go on in, Tommy.” Barely glancing at the mark on his hand, lines vivid purple against the skin—where did they find purple ink pens?--Tommy pushed through the indicated door.

        It was like walking into a dream, or would have been if a dream was solid and loud enough to knock you over. The large room inside was lit in colors so vivid they hurt his eyes, half-filled with people wearing more colors on less fabric than Tommy thought he'd ever seen in his life. The visual stimulation, however, was nothing compared to the audio.

        The regular throbbing seemed to fill up his chest from the inside, the higher pitches over it dazzling and stark in their beauty. It _hurt_ to listen to, between the volume and the glory, and for the first couple of minutes Tommy just let his eyes roll back in his head and soaked in the first hit. This was music, then. If it was always like this Tommy could maybe see why it had been banned. Surely nothing that felt this good could be safe.

        He didn't know how long he'd been standing there when someone came up to him.

        “You're new, aren't you?” The voice sounded almost directly in Tommy's ear, and he turned quickly to face the man who had spoken. He had short brown hair cropped close to his skull, and that was the only respectable thing about him; rings of metal shone in his lip, eyebrow, and one ear, and he wore a faded green t-shirt that was frayed and torn in places over loose blue jeans. The shirt's short sleeves revealed ink on his arms, twining abstract lines in bright colors. He looked about twenty.

        “Yeah,” Tommy said, and ducked his head a bit, taking another step away from the intimidating stranger. The man smiled a little, an expression that softened the hard angles of his face.

        “Here. I'm Frank. Let me give you the tour.” Frank had leaned right back in to make himself heard over the music, and didn't wait for an answer before he was pulling Tommy away from the shadows by the door. “There's the bar,” Frank said, gesturing to the long counter along the back wall. Rows of glass bottles stood behind it, presumably filled with alcohol. “For all your entertainment needs,” Frank said, and winked. “They do food, too, but only when other-Frank is on, so that's just Gamma shift Thursday Friday Saturday. You want a drink? You look a little tense.”

        “I don't drink,” Tommy said, a little louder and higher-pitched than he'd meant to. Frank chuckled and shook his head.

        “Fuck, kid, how old are you?” 

        “I'm seventeen!” Almost eighteen actually, but Tommy never remembered to say that. Frank just looked at him, and shook his head.

        “Walk careful, kid,” he said. “It's not hard to get deeper in than you mean to.” Then his solemn expression melted away. “Hey, you should meet 'Trick! He likes meeting new people!”

        “Oh... kay?” Once again it didn't seem to be a question, because Frank grabbed Tommy's hand and pulled him off into the crowd, towards the stage. Toward stage left, it turned out, where a little thicket of overstuffed chairs sprang out of what was otherwise a dance floor. Draped over them were a collection of men and women, all dressed in black and sharp primary colors, sprawled out as much over each other as the furniture. Frank dragged Tommy to the chair with the best view of the stage. All Tommy could think, looking at it, was “throne.”

        He was only thinking about the chair anyway because it meant he didn't have to think about the person in it. The man spread out with his legs draped over the armrest was skeleton thin, his hair a black tangled halo around his head. His clothes were black, too, and his nails had been lacquered a vivid acid green, only a few shades more vivid than his dark-lined eyes. He looked like some sort of eldritch monster. Then he smiled, and that was more frightening still, because it was _not_ frightening. It was a kind smile, the sort you might give a friend you hadn't seen in a long time. And it was directed at Tommy.

        “Brought you something!” Frank chirped behind him, looking at the man on the couch. “He's all _new_ , and _shiny_.” Tommy could feel himself blushing, but the man on the couch only pushed himself up to sit facing them.

        “Welcome,” he said, less loudly than you would expect to carry so easily over the music. “I'm Patrick," and he raised his eyes in a childishly expectant expression that made Tommy lean forward to half-shout.

        “I'm Ad-uh-Tommy.” Patrick grinned. “The bouncer named you, didn't he?” he asked conspiratorially. Their faces were much closer together than Tommy was used to with strangers. Patrick also took Tommy's silence as assent. “Yeah, I thought so. He's a big Bon Jovie fan.” The band on stage finished the song and silence dropped like a curtain falling.

        As the man on stage thanked the audience, Tommy asked, “Who or what is a Bon Jovi?” A moments pause, then lights flicked up on the main floor as Frank and several people nearby chuckled. only looked sympathetic, and it was as magnetic as the rest of his expressions. If

        “Poor little lamb. You really are new, aren't you? Not just to this place, but the whole of the real world.” He scooted over in his chair and pulled Tommy down beside him. Tommy went with a muffled squeak, too startled to do anything else. Patrick was very warm and very close, shoulders pressed together by the chair, which had seemed much larger with only Patrick on it. “Frankie, could you have them cue up Wanted? I know they don't like to play the canned stuff between sets, but if all Tommy hears is these poseurs, he isn't going to come back.” Patrick turned back to Tommy, and if they'd been too close before they were now all but nose-to-nose. “Now,” he said, and Tommy could feel Patrick's breath against his throat, “As it happens a Bon Jovi is both a who-- Jon Bon Jovie—and a what—namely his band, which you are about to hear a recording of. Ah, here.” 

        The PA system crackled back to life, and Tommy had to shut his eyes as the music poured over him. It wasn't as powerfully _present_ as the live band, but it was so much _better_. Tommy could feel it sparking across his skin, spinning lazy stars through his blood to set his brain on fire.

        Tommy didn't open his eyes until the song ended. When he did Patrick was very close, eyes dark—from the music or something else, Tommy couldn't say. 

        “And your name,” Patrick said softly, “comes from another of their songs.” He began to sing softly, in a low clear voice. “This is for the ones that stood their ground, for Tommy and Gina, who never backed down.”

        Patrick licked his lips and Tommy watched helplessly. Something was very strange here. It must be the music making him feel so warm, so fascinated and soft-edged. It was the music, Tommy thought. He couldn't be blamed for that. Tommy let himself relax into the feeling, into Patrick's shoulder, warm and soft. 

        “And there's advice for you, if you want to take it,” Patrick breathed, leaning impossibly closer as he spoke. “Never. Back. Down.” Patrick's lips were warm against Tommy's mouth, and it really wouldn't have been that different from kissing a girl except for the lingering effect of the music and the intensity with which Patrick kissed. It was warm and sweet, and Tommy leaned into it as Patrick's hand slipped around the back of his neck to stroke at the short hairs there. They pulled apart after what could only have been a moment, really, but Tommy could feel his heartbeat running too fast and his breathing ragged. 

        “Welcome,” Patrick said again, no trace of a smile. “You think you'll be sticking around?”

        “Yes,” Tommy said, pinned helpless under that green gaze. “ _Yes_.”

 

* * *

 


	2. A Lullaby In A Minor Key

After the first show, Tommy went straight home. Patrick had waved him off with a smile when he'd said he was leaving, and Tommy had been too tired and too _high_ to really mind very much. The walk back was cold in the not-yet-summer. Surely the streets had not been so narrow, walking to the club. Now they were dingy and dark and the lack of color felt unnatural after the visual chaos of the club. Tommy snuck in, locked the door quietly, and fell into bed still dressed.

Patrick wasn't at the second show. His chair was empty, as though no one dared to take it in the absence of the man himself. Tommy stayed until the techs had finished tearing down, until Frank came out with a broom and seemed startled to find him in the nearly-empty room. 

“Go home, kid,” Frank told him. “You're dead on your feet. He'll be here tomorrow.” Frank hadn't bothered to say who he meant, but Tommy wasn't feeling dishonest enough to ask, either. He slept like the dead that night and dreamed of chasing something through a dark wood. He never found what he was looking for and woke up to his alarm blaring trying to remember just what it was.

Tommy was very late to his third show and came in as the last band of the evening was halfway through their set. It was a Saturday, he'd been busy and lost track of time. This time the lights on the main floor were off, and all the illumination in the club came from the spotlights on the main stage. Not a single one of them was white, and the riot of color made the music hit that much faster. Tommy had to fight his way across the room to Patrick's chair—the room had more people in it than he'd ever seen there, and knots of them were dancing or fighting or just  _moving_ like they couldn't help themselves, and the band was maybe the best thing he'd ever heard except for his first taste of Bon Jovi. By the time he'd actually made it to Patrick's chair, sweat was beginning to prickle on the back of Tommy's neck and his head was spinning.

Patrick was scowling at something just to one side of the stage, or maybe at something in his head, and Tommy practically fell over the chair trying to tap him on the shoulder to get his attention. Patrick's scowl turned into a startled smile as he grabbed at Tommy, hauling him into the chair again instead of trying to get him back on his feet.

“Can you stick around tonight?” Patrick said in his ear. Tommy nodded and the smile turned into a grin. “Wait for me, after the set. I wanna show you something.”

Patrick didn't speak for the rest of the show. Tommy approved; the music was very, very good, and somewhere between sitting down and the encore he'd wound up pressed against Patrick, with these limbs tangled up in a fashion that would be hard to sort out when the time came to get up.

When the music stopped, the silence almost hurt. Tommy let out the breath he hadn't been aware he was holding and pressed his face into Patrick’s' shoulder. He could feel the shake of a quiet chuckle in the press of the other boy's bones.

“It's okay, babe. This place is done for the night, but we aren't.” Tommy perked up a bit at that, and when he lifted his head, Patrick was there and smiling and just so _Patrick_ that Tommy kissed him hello.

“Hi,” Tommy said, after he'd pulled away. Patrick grinned, seeming Tommy's age for the first time since they'd met.

“Hi,” Patrick chirped back and then gave the crowd a lazy glance. “Yeah, they'll forgive me for skipping out now. C'mon.” They piled awkwardly off the couch, Patrick's hand wrapped around Tommy's wrist as he pulled them toward an unmarked door. This let out in a dusty hallway lit only by a thin strand of brightly-colored tiny lights and more doors. Patrick fumbled for something around his neck and came up with a key on a cord that had been hidden under his shirt. It shared the chain with a tiny charm—a silver rose. The key went into a door, and Patrick flicked a switch on the way in that illuminated...instruments. Three guitars, one of which appeared to have only four strings, a drum kit, and a collection of black boxes.

“My private stash,” Patrick explained with a grin. “Well, my band's, but they won't mind so long as we don't fuck anything up.”

“You're in a _band_?!” That explained his private chair. Patrick must be pretty good to merit the deference he was given in the club.

“Well, sort of.” Patrick pulled a wry face, “We're having creative differences right now.”

“Wow,” Tommy managed, but Patrick just kept talking.

“That's not why I brought you here, though,” Patrick dug around in a cardboard box until he came up with a cable which he connected to one of the black boxes, then one of the guitars on its stand. He fiddled with the knobs and switches on the front before plucking single string. The note rang clear and achingly pure in the small room. “Okay,” Patrick said, apparently to himself, and picked up the guitar.

“Wha...?” Tommy trailed off as Patrick draped the strap over his neck and guided his left hand into place on the strings.

“Press here,” Patrick said in his ear, “and here, and here.” He grabbed Tommy's right hand in his own. “Now strum.” He brought their joined hands sharply down on the strings.

The chord rung in the small room with the force of a gunshot to the back of the head. Tommy could feel it in his bones, with the rock-solid rightness of a mountain range settling. It faded slowly from the air but not from Tommy's body, which sang from the chord and burned where Patrick's hands still covered his.

“Wow,” Tommy managed to say, and didn't try to stop himself from strumming again, with more authority.

“Yeah,” Patrick said, when it had died away again. “That, sweetheart, is an A major chord.” Tommy struck it a third time and reveled in the sound, bright and triumphant. “Wanna see another one?” Patrick asked, and Tommy nodded quickly. Patrick pressed close against his back as eh guided Tommy's left hand into a slightly different position. The chord that rang out this time was sweet and viciously melancholy.

“A minor,” Patrick named it. “When I'm checking the tuning, that's the first chord my fingers find.”

“The tuning?” Tommy asked, and that launched Patrick off on a speech about notes and relative versus absolute pitch that made some nods to Tommy's AP Physics class with frequency and tension, and Patrick's hands drifted down to rest on Tommy's waist but he didn't move away.

“You don't need most of that to play, really, but you ought to know it anyway if you ever want to write your own stuff,” Patrick finished, and those words caught in Tommy's brain the same way the chords had.

“Write my own?” Tommy asked, very quietly. It had honestly never occurred to him that music was something people wrote... but it made sense. The songs had to come from somewhere, after all.

“There is nothing in the world like playing something you wrote yourself,” Patrick said softly—reverently. For a moment Tommy was reminded of when his grandfather talked about God. Not the meek god of the state-approved faith, he said, but _real_ God, the one who battled with devil with bottomless compassion and great loving wrath. Patrick sounded the same way.

“You write, then,” Tommy said. It wasn't a question—more like a revelation. 

“Yes,” Patrick said, still in that soft tone. “Would you like to hear?” Wordlessly Tommy pulled the strap from his neck and handed Patrick the guitar. Patrick's hands settled onto the instrument like a man cradling a lover. HE began to play with his eyes closed, soft and inexpressibly sad. Then he opened his eyes and began to sing, and Tommy felt the air freeze in his chest.

 

Someone told me once that forever is a dream;

I was a dreamer full of foolish hopes

But something in you struck me on the edges of a seam

And now I'm held together with staples and ropes.

So darling, honey, close your eyes

and sing yourself this lullaby.

 

I loved you like the winter moon desires summer sun,

But still the seasons kept on turning.

You were the war I never stood a chance of having won,

The bridge that I just kept on burning.

So darling, honey, close your eyes

and sing yourself this lullaby.

 

In another universe, maybe I could stay

In another world with fairer rules.

This one never did contain the words I'd have to say

but we kept on trying like a pair of fools.

So darling, honey, close your eyes

And sing yourself this lullaby.

 

Honey, whisper this refrain

To chase away the ghost of pain.

In the midst of longing's curse

Rattle off another verse.

 

Darling, honey, close your eyes,

and sing yourself this lullaby.

Darling, honey, close your eyes,

and sing yourself this lullaby.

 

When he'd finished Tommy opened his eyes. He wasn't sure when he'd closed them. He thought it was somewhere in the third verse, where the grief and love on Patrick's face had begun to feel like a physical pain. Now Patrick's head was bent over his guitar, hair hiding his face, and Tommy reached up a careful hand to run it through Patrick's hair. It was thick and soft and just a bit greasy, and Patrick pushed into his hand with a soft sound. Tommy could see his hands unclench from the guitar, practically feel the effort it took for him to relax those muscles. When Patrick did look up, his eyes were suspiciously bright.

“That's not really ready to perform yet,” he said, voice rough. “I still get too caught up. But what did you think?” 

“It hurt,” Tommy said, and Patrick chuckled. “It hurt, but in a way that feels... clean? Like when you're sick and the fever breaks, and it's worse for a while but you know you're getting better.”

“Huh. Thanks.” Patrick returned the guitar carefully to its stand and flicked the amp off.

“I also think,” Tommy said more quietly, “That whoever you wrote that song for is an idiot for letting you go.” Patrick looked startled, then grinned and ruffled Tommy's hair. It was an oddly condescending gesture, given how Patrick had treated him so far.

“That's the thing,” Patrick said, “I'm much better at writing the sad songs after than the whole relationship thing while it's happening.” Tommy didn't know what to say, but Patrick didn't seem to expect a reply.

“C'mon, it is getting late. D'you have to be home?”

“No,” Tommy said. “I told my mother I was spending the night at Daniel's.” 

Patrick barked a startled laugh. “That's my legal name,” he said, like admitting a secret. “So it's amusing you'd pick it for a lie.”

“Could even be true, if you wanted.” Tommy said, praying he'd been reading the signals right and that what he'd heard about musicians was actually true. Patrick was still looking surprised and amused, though the later was clearly winning.

“Sweetheart,” he said, and the patronizing tone was back, “Ask me again when you know what you're asking.” Tommy just stared at him.

“That's a no?” he asked, understanding but hoping to be wrong.

“That's a 'not now',” Patrick corrected. “I'm not good for beginners.”

“What makes you think I'm a beginner?” Tommy snorted a laugh of his own. “I turn eighteen next month. My last girlfriend dumped me for being too kinky. Whatever criteria you want to use, I'm no innocent.” Patrick's mouth had dropped open, just slightly. “Being new to one vice doesn't mean you're new to all of them, dude.”

“Uh...” For the first time since they'd met, Patrick appeared to be actually speechless. Tommy favored him with a slow smirk. “I'm not sure what to say to that, honestly.”

“May I kiss you again?” Tommy asked, quietly moving towards Patrick and pausing just out of reach. Patrick nodded slowly, and Tommy pulled him into a kiss that started out chaste and gentle but didn't stay that way for long. Patrick was careful at first, until Tommy snaked a hand up to tangle in his hair. Then Patrick dragged him up against the wall and it was filthy, all slick tongues and the hot press of bodies.

“I'm beginning to wonder just who's taking advantage of who,” Patrick gasped against Tommy's mouth. That was enough that Tommy pulled back until their bodies weren't quite touching.

“No one at all,” he said, very quietly. “Teach me to play a song?” he asked, feeling impulsive and wicked and brave. Patrick laughed.

“Sure,” he said, and he did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you want to stop at the end of this chapter, that is a good place to stop. I cannot promise there will be any more of those. The lyrics are mine, so please don't ask me about the attribution. There isn't one, I wrote them.


End file.
